Join My Spiffy Newsletter

* indicates required

First Name *

Email Address *

My Pretty Awesome Cookbook

Follow and Search

Vanilla Garlic is my nifty food blog that I tinker at with essays about life and food that I like to think are humorous or thoughtful. I also work as a freelance writer and a cookbook author. Whether I succeed at any of this debatable.

Linkbar

Thursday, June 14, 2007

I am not sure what the impetus for this cupcake was, I was planning to do an ice cream filled one, but then my day got too busy and I had to postpone it since I couldn't get the ingredients I needed. Still, I was in the mood to bake after psyching myself up for it all day.

Down into my pantry and fridge I went, hoping I might find some sort of inspiration to light my baking way. I uncovered some fresh lemons that I had purchased at the farmer's market and tried to see if I could use them. Then a big verdant aroma caught my attention, and I noticed the leftover rosemary from last night's spaghetti. I've always been a fan of my friend Sarah's rosemary bread; it's sweet, fragrant, rustic and sweet. Freshly baked it's perfect with when sliced and spread with creamy butter...

But back to the cupcake, I remembered the orange scented white wine cupcake utilizing cornmeal, so I figured that it might be the perfect base for a lemon and rosemary cupcake. With a simple sugar crust, it would be a perfect cheap n' easy Spring cupcake.

And they are. I think these are Rob's favorite cupcakes to date. They're very Andalusian in their taste and so simple to make. Plus, no butter or frosting makes them a bit lighter, which makes many of my taste testers happy. We also noticed a peculiar yet perfect match for this cupcake, English Breakfast tea. Really, the robust and bittersweet tea matched perfectly with the herbacious lemony cupcake, each emboldened the other and you never knew which was the star, the tea or the cupcake.

What You'll Do...1) Preheat oven to 350 F2) Whisk together the eggs, sugar, and olive oil.3) Sift in the dry ingredients together and whisk until incorporated.4) Chop the rosemary, and fold it and the lemon zest into the batter.5) Scoop into cupcake papers and sprinkle on sugar into a thick, snowy covering.6) Bake for 17-20 minutes, rotating the pan after the first 15. A toothpick should come out clean.7) Set onto a wire rack to cool.

and you'll get more out of that lemon zest if you grind it with the sugar, or part of it, in a food processor or a dedicated sweet spice grinder. The oils in the rind/zest are released when they get flung around with a sharp blade!

It also helps to use non-waxed/organic lemons because oftentimes when you're zesting waxed fruit, that's most of what you're eating in the end....

these are 2 of my favorite flavors together! Thyme is also nice as well...

Happened upon this recipe on google and what can I say? These cupcakes were SO delicious. Thanks for posting (even if it's an oldie), they helped inspire a blog post for me this week and were great to munch on. -K

Hey, you're leaving a comment! That's pretty darn cool, so thanks. If you have any questions or have found an error on the site or with a recipe, please e-mail me and I will reply as soon as possible.~Garrett